I've missed hanging out on FFF. I've been checking in off and on, but too caught up in real life stuff to really keep up with fic and the threads. But I just got back from New Zealand, and should have some more time to myself in the next few months. I certainly will have free time this summer, because I'm changing jobs and will take as much time off as the icky finances allow.

I'm going to be a teacher! I'll be teaching physics and dance at a private high school just outside NYC, which means I'll have summers off, as well as long breaks at Christmas and in March. My theory is to use my vacation time to get into writing original fiction. (Well, and to vacate a bit too!) I've got something going now, although I haven't been able to really develop it yet. This summer will be a battle between the original idea and my never-ending fanfic, which I really would like to finish. I know the ending but it's just so hard to get there!

Anyway - New Zealand. Gawd, what a gorgeous gorgeous place! I was with a student dance group, so we were mostly in the cities. We did concerts and workshops in Kaikoura, Dunedin, and Wellington. Informal concerts, but fun. Very good audiences, including one at a community center with lots of children. A few times I thought the kids were going to run up and join us LOL! They was very cute. We performed outside in Wellington, which was interesting. These aren't the kind of dances that love concrete (ouch!) but it was fun to have wind and sun and blue sky above us. A different experience, for sure.

Being with the group and having a schedule to keep, I was a bit limited as far as getting into the countryside, but I saw plenty to impress me. The area around Queenstown is just out of control. I wish I could have spent a few weeks there, instead of barely a day! The mountains are (fittingly) called the Remarkables, and I guess a lot of LotR was shot in them. We drove through a rocky area that was straight out of the beginning of Two Towers. I kept expecting Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli to come running around an outcrop LOL!

NZ is also very European in places, with the vineyards and cypress trees in the valleys. And lots and lots of sheep. (I got the best wool socks!) We had a fabulous afternoon at the Gibbston winery. I'm a red wine lover, but the NZ whites were lovely, especially on a warm sunny day. And it turns out that Gibbston was only a few miles from the original bungy jumping spot - I really wanted to do it! But the schedule didn't allow. :(

The people in New Zealand are soooo friendly. It's much more laid back than where I live on the US's east coast (but then, no where is as uptight and hurried as here...) There were some similarities though - I was on a college campus on St. Patty's day and those Kiwis sure do know how to drink beer! It wasn't pretty.

Oh, we also had the amazing experience of staying at a Moari morae (meeting house) near Wellington. We got to see a haka done by students - this is the dance that the All Blacks, the NZ rugby team, does before matches. F*ing amazing. We got a lesson with the poi (ball on a string) and the paddle weapon thing (I forget the real name) but not the haka. I guess that's reserved for men - which I can't really argue. I mean...

Mmmmm. That's just... Well, you fill in the words. ;)

OK, and I guess I'll post a few pictures, though this ain't the picture thread. First the view from our Queenstown hotel - we had a HUGE suite. In the morning we moved the furniture out of the main room and had a little Pilates class with this view out past the deck:

This next pic is on the beach somewhere north of Dunedin, where there were some very cool and alien looking round boulders scattered about the beach. I was fighting off a cold, so didn't skip about in the cold water myself, but the younger and more energetic dancers were going for a while:

And this is on a hill overlooking Wellington - me lifting one of the dancers who's just so teeny tiny she needs to be lifted now and then. :)

OK, that's enough of that. If there's any fic readers happening by - I'm going to try to get back into it this weekend. My writing has been so very stalled! All the rehearsals were pretty exhausting, and have taken up most of my free time since early January. But now it's time to get creative. I must find a way to skip the hard blah parts of my fic and get on to the good stuff.

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